RIP Elizabeth Edwards - another pink ribbon sister

Elizabeth Edwards, former wife of John Edwards (presidential candidate) passed away on December 7th. Her family had just released a statement about her failing health a few days before and she shared a very kind and graceful comment with the world. Her medical team shared that there was nothing further (at that time) that they could do for her and she passed away a couple of days later.

I, like everyone else, watched this lady's life from a distance. Absorbing what was fed to me by the media machine and just pondering how she managed to get through what appeared to be tragedy after tragedy with grace and polish. I recall a conversation years ago with a work colleague in which she was referred to as a "steel magnolia". That term is used to describe a southern woman who is generally regarded as tough and independent, but still quite ladylike. I've always sort of liked that term -- and I think that it is one of the highest compliments that you can receive.

Elizabeth Edwards was a steel magnolia to me. She endured losses and set-backs that would send others to their knees... but she managed to stand tall and keep her head up through it all. The death of her child, breast cancer diagnosis, learning that her husband cheated on her and fathered a child outside of their marriage... and then the recurrence of her cancer with little possibility of curing it... that is a lot of storms for one person to withstand. But she did.

Politics aside, it takes a lot of strength and a strong resiliency to say to the winds blowing through your life... "I'm not going anywhere". To be able to bend like a willow tree and yet not break is to me the ultimate in strength. I hope that I reflect that same steel magnolia strength and reserve to people as I struggle to deal with the aftermath of breast cancer.

Cancer can wreck relationships. I've heard a lot of stories about marriages that disintegrated after the the diagnosis of cancer. There are some marriages that are strengthened by the fight to be sure. But many simply are too fractured and/or weakened by other storms of life to endure one last hurricane. I appreciated that after learning that her husband had fathered a child with his mistress Elizabeth decided that she'd had enough. I liked that about her. I don't know whether I would have done the same thing in her position. Facing the end of my life, I'm not sure that I would have the strength to stand alone. But she chose to live life on her terms even until the end. That's admirable.

In her passing, I hope that her friends and family (and her ex-husband) accept that her disease was not the totality of who she was, and how she impacted the world. Her disease was merely the catalyst that allowed millions of others in the world to see her strength and be inspired by it.

I know I have been inspired. Life is as good as we allow it to be, no matter how many days we have. Or have left.

"Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before," she said. "You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good."